The Art Of Secret Lairs, A Crash Course
by ExellentlyEllen
Summary: Tonight, Felicity had enough. She had come in, into this creepy, smelly awful place, careful not to touch anything with her bare hands and sat in her slightly dinged desk chair. On the way down she'd tripped twice, got her heel stuck in a hole the size of Texas and screamed 3 times because there was a giant, mutated rat following her.


**So, this is by far the longest chapter I've ever written.. I don't know where it came from.. it had been sort of floating in my brain for a long time, and I tried to fit it in with my other story, but it wasn't quite right. So here you have it, a one-shot (but might be a sort of base for a longer fic in the future). **

**Hope you enjoy it, and I look forward to reading your reviews.. I need your reviews, they are the bread to my butter, and without bread, butter just doesn't do it for me...**

**Disclaimer: I still do not own anything remotely related to Arrow or it's characters... I just wish I did**

**- Ellen**

* * *

Two months after the big fight, Oliver was back. In the figurative sense, because he wouldn't think of leaving his team again, this family. No, he was back at QC, being, or rather _trying_ to be, CEO again. It had been a struggle, to get his company back. You'd think that because Isabel's involvement in the destruction of Starling, it would have been easy to get the board to reinstate him. It wasn't. He had to fight for every vote, every asset had to be released through a painstakingly long and boring legal procedure. But it had finally ended, and Oliver was now back to sitting in his office. His _new_ office. The old one just wasn't it for him anymore. The idea that Slade had been there, ruining all that he held dear, it was just too much.

Felicity had, through less than legal means, procured almost all of Slade's liquid assets, and funneled it into various charities dedicated to rebuilding the city. And even though two months really wasn't that long, he'd begun to see the changes already. Construction crews were becoming commonplace in the street, and there was a distinct paint smell everywhere.

Oliver refused to stay at the Queen Manor. It was too big, too lonely, too quiet. So he slept at the lair again, like he did when he was on the outs with his mother. This lair however, was slightly less .. well _everything_ than the last one. Mainly because Felicity refused to install her 'babies' there. They'd been arguing about his choice of hide-out and his living arrangements ever since they came back from China.

But tonight, Felicity had enough. She had come in, into this creepy, smelly awful place, careful not to touch anything with her bare hands and sat in her slightly dinged desk chair. On the way down she'd tripped twice, got her heel stuck in a hole the size of Texas and screamed 3 times because there was a giant, mutated rat following her. Every time she came here, all she wanted to do afterwards is get a tetanus shot and wondered if S.T.A.R Labs could make a cure for the plague. She was _so _over this, it wasn't even funny anymore.

"You are moving. No, scratch that, _we_ are moving." She said looing up from her tablet, to where Oliver was punching something. Before he got a chance to argue with her, she'd already started babbling again. "We are moving, because this place is filthy and disgusting and I refuse, _refuse_ to stay here one day longer than I have already. Besides, this isn't exactly a place people expect the great Oliver Queen to spend his nights. What if somebody gets curious about what it is exactly you do when the sun goes down? Verdant was a plausible excuse, because ..well, you're _you_ and that is what people expect you to do, you know the partying. Not that you still are like that, it's just what you let the people see… Anyway, you need a better, more reasonable place to hang out at night, so people don't get suspicious."

He shook his head, in a defeated kind of way. She was right. Of course she was right. Wasn't she always? He could do with some decent bath facilities, and generally less… dilapidation. "Okay" he said. "No Oliver, let me finish, it's really important because of your stat… _what?!_" Felicity only now realized what he'd said. She was so focused on all her arguments, concentrated on making him see sense, she hadn't actually heard what he said, and just assumed he disagreed. "I said, okay. You're right. This place isn't… it isn't right. And if somebody sees me here, they will start to wonder and this would indeed be much more difficult to explain than the foundry was. So, let's find a new place."

Her smile brightened. He loved when that happened, and he loved it even more when he was the reason it happened. Even though things were a bit.. strained between them at the moment, his heart still skipped a beat when she smiled at him. In that way. He was certain their relationship would return back to normal. Back to the easy camaraderie they had, before the _incident_. He'd said those words, not really thinking about the consequences, just focused on defeating Slade. He did love her. Had been _in love_ for quite some time. But she was his Felicity, his IT genius, his friend, and his life was too dangerous. He couldn't be with her out of fear for her safety. But in the end, she was stronger than any of them. The only reason they were able to defeat Slade was her. And the more he thought about that, the less he wanted to fight his feelings. The less he wanted to fight her.

* * *

"So, I've found us 4 buildings that would be perfect for our needs. Good location, good size, great access." She told him when he got in the office that morning. It had been 3 days since he'd agreed to look for a new place. And in those days Felicity had started god knows how many searches, each time setting more parameters, to find the perfect building. First there had to be the location. Not in the Glades, but not too far from it either, in a part of town that was getting popular with the 'young and hip' crowd. The perfect place for Oliver Queen to reside.

The next was access. If he was going to live in a residential neighborhood, they had to be able to sneak in and out without being seen. So there were about 6 buildings that were left after this. Two of them were on top of some old subway tunnels, just about the only ones that were not destroyed in the undertaking, with an above ground access point about 2 miles out, and big enough for a car to pass through. The four others had access to old drainage pipes that were no longer in use.

And, even though sometimes, size really doesn't matter, it had to be big enough. It had to have at least 2 stories above ground. One floor for the garage, and the other for living. But, more important, it had to have at least one level _underground_. Felicity could hack the planning commission's servers to make it look like there was no basement, so nobody would be looking for it.

And for all those parameters, there were 4 buildings left. And today, they would go 'house-hunting'. At the sight of the first building Felicity refused to get out of the car. It led to a funny scene for Diggle, who was driving and some annoyed sighs from the realtor.

"_Felicity, would you please get out of the car so we can go inside. It might not be so bad when you're in there." He said, gently pulling at her arm. She pulled it out of his grip and scooted a little farther back in the car, just out of his reach. "I'm not going in there Oliver. That is not what the building looked like in the pictures. Because in the pictures, it definitely had a damn _roof_! And there was a lot less garbage. We are not, and I repeat NOT buying a building that is next to a dump."_

_Oliver had just sighed, turned to the realtor and said, "on to the next one, I guess."_

It hadn't really been a dump of course. But the empty field next to the building was definitely being used for things it wasn't necessarily purposed for. The second building they looked at, looked promising from the outside. But once they got in, it was clear they would need a whole lot more work, and a whole lot more actual contractors to make it work. But when they saw the third building, all three team members lit up like a Christmas tree. It was part of a loft project that had been abandoned after the Glades fell, but it was in perfect condition. The ground floor was parking space and the second floor was divided into two lofts. It had most of the work already done, there was plumbing and electricity, and lots of space. Windows everywhere, with technology to make them opaque to prevent people looking in. The basement was fortified and could be used as storage, and there was an access hatch to the drainage sewer in the corner. It was _perfect_.

* * *

Felicity was really excited. Oliver had tasked her with building their new lair (of course), but he'd also asked her help for the upstairs. So far they'd been out shopping for bathrooms and a kitchen. They'd talked an laughed at some of the ridiculous things the store-clerk showed them. Oliver was struck with the pleasantry of the tasks, the _normalcy_ of shopping for household items. But he suspected it had more to do with the company of Felicity than the actual tasks at hand. He really didn't care if his kitchen had drawers or cupboards, it made no difference to him if his bathroom sinks were sunken or freestanding and what kinds of faucets he should use. As far as he was concerned, if he had running water and a bed to crash in, it was heaven.

But Felicity… she loved this. Went over the pros and cons of certain items. Debated the size of refrigerator ("But Oliver, what if we have like, 4 days' worth of leftovers and there's no room to put it in the fridge because there's all your champagne and caviar and fois gras in there." She had said, snickering when the clerk's jaw dropped to the floor) or the placement of the kitchen sink ("Oliver, you need to be able to look outside when you're cooking or doing the dishes. What's the point of having a big window with a spectacular view if you're not enjoying it while doing medial tasks.") He'd looked at her with his brows raised. She really didn't expect him to do _dishes_ did she?

And Oliver loved that she loved it. He watched her command the few professionals that were working at the loft, like they were kindergartners who needed instructions to finger-paint. He saw her almost jumping for joy when the cable people installed his top of the line network access points. And once, he thought he even saw her blink away a tear when Diggle and Roy were carrying in her 3 new 30 inch computer screens.

* * *

It took them 2 more months to finish Oliver's new home. It looked sleek and modern, but due to Felicity, it felt really homey. There was contrast in the furniture (wood and chrome with glass accents), in the sofa's she'd bought (2 black leather wing-chairs and one light grey couch with soft pillows everywhere) and on the walls (white with splashes of all different types of green and black, a little obvious for anyone who really knew _him_ but tasteful and neutral for everybody else).

The basement was deleted from public existence, and only accessible through a staircase hidden behind a fake wall in his den. And it was, even more so than the little touches in the loft, totally Felicity. Not that he boys didn't have room for their various attack and defense equipment, because they did. And it was all very, very high tech stuff. Some of it bought (through various shell companies and such) but most of it designed by Felicity and built by the four of them. The room was giant, with only some support pillars in place to keep the ceiling up. It was divided in 4 main areas. The first one, and according to Felicity, the most important one, was the IT-lab. Her desk was positioned in a way that she could keep an eye on all her systems, while still being able to watch the boys train (read: ogle Oliver on the Salmon Ladder). In front of that was the main training area. With the aforementioned Salmon Ladder in prime view of her computers, and mats all around. Training dummies to the right side of the wall. Behind that was a small obstacle course and even a climbing wall. To the left was the shooting range. There was a soundproof box for Diggle, so he could keep his (lifesaving) aim up to par, and there were the bulls eyes for Oliver and Roy to shoot arrows at. And about a million tennisballs. And by the stairs, easily accessible from every angle, was the medical area. Stocked with every kind of antiseptic, gauze and thread she could find, and even a brand new defibrillator. Because really, that thing had more use in their basement than it did in an ER.

There was no need for a lounging area downstairs, because they had a very comfy den, just 2 stairs up. In short, it was the dream lair.

* * *

About a week after Oliver moved in, he was in the basement working out, while Felicity was furiously typing away at something or other. Her keystrokes grew louder and louder with each passing minute, and frankly, it was driving Oliver mad.

"Felicity, care to share what is wrong?" he asked, while wiping the sweat from his face and moving to stand beside her. She looked up at him, eyes lingering a little too long on certain parts of his very sweaty, very _naked_ body. The sculpt of his abs, the curves of his arms, the little line of fluff leading down…. She shook her head to clear those bad, _bad_ thoughts and made her eyes travel back up to meet his gaze.

He didn't fail to notice the way her eyes had lingered on him. And it did nothing to cool him off. For a minute he'd forgotten why he had come over, but then she snapped out of her reverie and answered him grumpily. "This stupid tracking program I'm working on, it's not behaving like it should. Not like I want it to anyways. And each time I fix one part of the coding, another part just seems to slip a little. I'm seeing code everywhere, maybe I need some rest." He nodded, took her hand and pulled her up the secret stairs and into the den. "Sit" he said, his tone far more gentle than the words would lead you to believe. "I'm going to take a quick shower, and then we'll order some food, drink some wine, and you can school me in the most pertinent pop culture I'm still missing." She smiled at him and he turned to go and clean himself up.

* * *

He'd been thinking about it ever since he said those words. He'd been thinking about them on the island, when she asked him about them, but he wasn't ready. He'd been thinking about them when they finally had the company back, but he wasn't ready. He'd been thinking about it all the time they were shopping for his house, and he felt a little more ready. But it wasn't until this night, this ordinary, run-of-the-mill, lazy night that he felt 100% there. And he was going to tell her again, when he found the right time.

They ordered pizza, and Felicity did the cutest fist pump. ("I just realized, we can now have food delivered to our lair. This is awesome!) They watched some Doctor Who, and they slowly drifted closer to each other. By the end of the second episode, Felicity's head was resting on Oliver's shoulder and his had was on her knee, tracing unknown patterns on her skin.

"I love you." He said it without thinking, without consciously making up his mind. It just seemed like the perfect moment. "I know" she answered him, looking up into his eyes with those deep blue orbs. "And I love you to." With that, she kissed him sweet on his lips, laced her fingers with his, and rested her head back on his shoulder.

When Diggle woke them up the next morning, he wasn't surprised. He did give Oliver the warning glare though. But everything had changed, and yet, nothing was different. Things kept going the way they had been for the last two-and-something years. But slowly more of Felicity's things migrated their way over to Oliver's. And at one point, she just stopped going to her house, choosing instead to stay with him, to stay _home_. So everything had changed, but nothing was different.


End file.
